Amber Courtney

Professor Watson
3 February 2016
Reflection #1
The place I observed was Discovery Middle School, which is in Orange County near
Waterford, and it is a public school. It is a positive environment school with a fairly high
academic rating, and the surrounding neighborhoods would most likely be considered suburban.
The involvement of most of the parents in the school was evident in the fact that most of the
children came to school with the correct supplies and with their homework completed. The
students were able to be attentive and were not complaining about being tired or hungry. The
school was also able to provide an aide in some of the classes with lower level or ELL students.
It was easy to find my way to the front desk on the orderly and clean campus in order to sign in
and there were also staff outside making sure you were following the rules of the school. I was
able to observe six different classes, including English which is easier to observe ESOL students
in.
The first teacher I went to was Ms. Lennon who was teaching 7th grade regular math.
There seemed to be an equal balance of black, Caucasian, and Spanish students in this class.
Oftentimes most of the students in regular or intensive classes will have some sort of learning
disability or be ELL. Math will typically not be as difficult for ESOL students as English because
there is not a lot of writing. The ones who could not speak English as well tended not to speak as
much or answer questions, and mainly sat in the back. This could be that they did not want to
have a hard time saying what they wanted to and be made fun of. The teacher was able to write

examples on the board and sometimes would call on random students to test their understanding.
After the lesson the teacher would ask for questions and try to assist individual struggling
students more.
I was also able to observe two different 7th grade Standard English classrooms. In the first
classroom there were roughly 20 students, half of which were ELL. At the beginning of class the
students were working on reviewing vocab and reading it with their partner. The teacher had
many different translation dictionaries including Spanish, Arabic, Icelandic, and Vietnamese.
Then the students played a vocab game where the non-English speakers tended to struggle more.
The students were also given the opportunity to answer a question, tailored for the students
level, for candy if their partner won bingo. The student who spoke Vietnamese asked a lot of
questions, some repeating, for clarification. Each student had to fill out a monthly reading log
that used a book on the Lexile level of the student. The teacher had a good amount of books and
was able to help each student choose a book if they were not sure. The second class had roughly
ten students, with most being in a minority group and having a learning disability, including
ELL. Because of the class size, the students were able to work with each other and receive help
from the teacher or teachers aide. There is an online differentiated reading program that tracks
the students progress. The students are in that class for two periods in order to have more time.
I also observed three science classes, two 7th grade and one 6th grade. The first 7th grade
class was reviewing what they did for an experiment in the previous class and finishing up with
the rest of the experiment. The teacher called on random students and gave them time to find
their words in order to answer the question before helping them. The experiment was done in
the center of the classroom so that the students could gather around and draw pictures to show
what they saw. The students were respectful of others and did not make fun of those who

struggled. While they were writing answers to questions the teacher walked around the
classroom and was able to help one of the students' spell a word and another think through their
answer. The next science classroom was using computers for their lesson that had videos and
activities on a school program. At the front of the classroom were the ELL students or any who
might need more help so that they were easily accessible. For the students who were absent the
previous day, they were able to sit next to someone that would help them know what to do. The
last science class had younger students and the majority were not from minority groups, although
there were still a few ELL students. These students sat in groups so that their classmates could
help them complete the experiment and make sure each group member correctly filled out their
worksheet.
It made sense that ESOL students are in lower level classes because it is hard to be
integrated in a new culture and learn a new language while learning at the same level of other
English-speaking students. All of the teachers were walking around their classroom at some point
to make sure that students stayed on task and could give them help if they needed. It helps
ESOL students if they are sitting next to a classmate that can help them with simple questions as
compared to sitting next to someone who knows as little as they do. My least favorite part was
watching an English classroom with so few students working on homework for other classes
instead of working on reading which is what many of those students need to work on in order to
understand better in other classes. My favorite part was watching the students do experiments
and all of them able to know what was going on because it was not just words. I also liked seeing
classrooms with so many different resources being used such as computers, books, and
dictionaries. It is good to use different resources in order to keep the students engaged in
classroom activities.